Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand [150]
“I didn’t say we’d forbid it. I haven’t said anything about forbidding. But . . . but you can’t force men to risk their lives on something nobody’s ever tried before.”
“I’m not going to force anyone to take that run.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to ask for a volunteer.”
“And if none of them volunteers?”
“Then it will be my problem, not yours.”
“Well, let me tell you that I’m going to advise them to refuse.”
“Go ahead. Advise them anything you wish. Tell them whatever you like. But leave the choice to them. Don’t try to forbid it.”
The notice that appeared in every roundhouse of the Taggart system was signed “Edwin Willers, Vice-President in Charge of Operation.” It asked engineers, who were willing to drive the first train on the John Galt Line, so to inform the office of Mr. Willers, not later than eleven A.M. of July 15.
It was a quarter of eleven, on the morning of the fifteenth, when the telephone rang in her office. It was Eddie, calling from high up in the Taggart Building outside her window. “Dagny, I think you’d better come over.” His voice sounded queer.
She hurried across the street, then down the marble-floored halls, to the door that still carried the name “Dagny Taggart” on its glass panel. She pulled the door open.
The anteroom of the office was full. Men stood jammed among the desks, against the walls. As she entered, they took their hats off in sudden silence. She saw the graying heads, the muscular shoulders, she saw the smiling faces of her staff at their desks and the face of Eddie Willers at the end of the room. Everybody knew that nothing had to be said.
Eddie stood by the open door of her office. The crowd parted to let her approach him. He moved his hand, pointing at the room, then at a pile of letters and telegrams.
“Dagny, every one of them,” he said. “Every engineer on Taggart Transcontinental. Those who could, came here, some from as far as the Chicago Division.” He pointed at the mail. “There’s the rest of them. To be exact, there’s only three I haven’t heard from: one’s on a vacation in the north woods, one’s in a hospital, and one’s in jail for reckless driving—of his automobile.”
She looked at the men. She saw the suppressed grins on the solemn faces. She inclined her head, in acknowledgment. She stood for a moment, head bowed, as if she were accepting a verdict, knowing that the verdict applied to her, to every man in the room and to the world beyond the walls of the building.
“Thank you,” she said.
Most of the men had seen her many times. Looking at her, as she raised her head, many of them thought—in astonishment and for the first time—that the face of their Operating Vice-President was the face of a woman and that it was beautiful.
Someone in the back of the crowd cried suddenly, cheerfully, “To hell with Jim Taggart!”
An explosion answered him. The men laughed, they cheered, they broke into applause. The response was out of all proportion to the sentence. But the sentence had given them the excuse they needed. They seemed to be applauding the speaker, in insolent defiance of authority. But everyone in the room knew who it was that they were cheering.
She raised her hand. “We’re too early,” she said, laughing. “Wait till a week from today. That’s when we ought to celebrate. And believe me, we will!”
They drew lots for the run. She picked a folded slip of paper from among a pile containing all their names. The winner was not in the room, but he was one of the best men on the system, Pat Logan,